Patricia Mou

5. Low Time Preference. Those with low time preference play it more effectively - they happily delay gratification to build real value.

Working together can also be an extremely enriching and sobering experience. It is enriching because people learn, gain traction, motivation and a sense of meaning. It’s sobering because it provides a real-world test to the quality and strength of the coordination fabric your group has been building, stripping away the relative comfort of... See more

This means not waiting to find your story arc, but rather recognizing that there are stories that pop up which you can opt into if you recognize them and have the right skills and virtues.

I have taken a lot of happiness from a sense - often grandiose and sometimes illusory - that I am, by my various actions, helping create a future that will be more free, more tolerant, more open, and more just.

Most of us, however, develop a portfolio of meaning – we have multiple sources of it in our lives, and cannot in fact derive it from only one source any more than we can be healthy on a diet of bread and water.

We don’t have a good sense for what the maximal “carrying capacity” of a tribe is. If you are interested in growing your tribe, you probably want to adopt a slow and careful approach, one that allows you to slow down further or take a step back if it looks like you have been moving too fast.  

Happiness is not determined by objective factors, but by how you feel about them.

1. Intellectual Curiosity.  Intellectual curiosity is a real-world superpower.